Britain will be at a serious disadvantage unless the top rate of tax is slashed
again, Boris Johnson said yesterday as he urged David Cameron to herald an
“age of enterprise”.

The Mayor of London received his second standing ovation of the Conservative
Party conference after his typically unorthodox keynote speech, which he
used to lavish praise on the Prime Minister for his attempts to repair the
economy.

Mr Johnson also gave a firm promise to serve a full second term as mayor, a
pledge that will see him ensconced inside City Hall until after the next
general election in

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Britain is struggling to compete on tax, warns Boris Johnson

2012-10-10 00:01:23.988

The following excerpts are from Boris Johnson's speech at the 2012 Conservative Party conference with analysis from Phil Collins, The Times political commentator

Click on the grey bar to open and close Phil Collins's commentary

Praise for Cameron

You showed that we can overcome a Labour lead and win even in
places Ed and co are so cocky as to think they own. And if we can win
in the middle of a recession and wipe out a 17 point Labour poll lead
then I know that David Cameron will win in 2015. When the economy has
turned round and people are benefiting in jobs and growth from the
firm leadership you have shown and the tough decisions you have taken.

Phil Collins

A clever opening which contains two messages which are decidedly in
tension...

... The first one is Mr Johnson’s principal claim on Tory
affections – they think of him as a winner. The second is the
protestation of loyalty. In fact the endorsement of the Prime Minister
is pretty unequivocal. This speech is not the outrageous show of
disloyalty that senior Conservatives must have feared.

Cleaning up the mess

And I was pleased to see the other day that you have called me a
blond haired mop. A mop. Well, if I am a mop then you are a broom. A
broom that is cleaning up the mess left by the Labour government and a
fantastic job you are doing. I thank you and congratulate you and your
colleagues. George Osborne the dustpan, Michael Gove the jay cloth,
William Hague the sponge. Because for the last hundred years it has
been the historic function of the Conservatives to be the household
implements after the Labour binge has got out of control.

Phil Collins

This is not just a funny passage, it’s a funny passage because it’s a
philosophical truth...

... This is a variation on Salisbury’s famous line
about the Tory being the policeman ensuring order. It’s also the
predicament of the modern Conservative party – is it anything more
than the people sent in to do the cleaning? The rest of this sunny
speech set out Mr Johnson’s optimistic vision of how much more he can
be than a mop. Is Mr Cameron more than a broom?

A eulogy for the nation

Until everyone was suffused with a kind of Ready Brek glow of
happiness and from then on it was as if nothing could go wrong.... And
the sociologists will write learned papers on that sudden feeling that
gripped us all. Was it eudaemonia, euphoria, eupepsia or some other
Greek word beginning with eu?

Phil Collins

Eutopia, perhaps?...

... Boris was taking the Tories to a good place with
this passage. There have been plenty of Olympics passages this
conference season but none more effective than this and the difference
is the language Mr Johnson is prepared to use. Throughout the speech
he uses turns of phrase and colourful imagery (a giant hormonal valve,
broken-backed diplodocus) that nobody else dares. They are dull and
he is not.

Standard issue Tory

I am a Conservative. I believe in a low-tax and low-regulation
economy and I believe that as far as possible government needs to make
life easy for those who get up at 5 to get to their shops or
businesses – the strivers, the strugglers – whatever the vogue world
is for them today....as Napoleon almost said, Britain is a nation of
small and medium sized enterprises.

Phil Collins

A straightforward party pitch, well received in the hall...

... This passage
is notable less for its intrinsic content, which is standard issue
Tory, as for the fact that he then chose to undermine it immediately
in the section that follow below. That shows a subtler political cast
of mind that Mr Johnson is often given credit for.

One Nation Conservatives

For the last four years my team in City Hall has been working... to
fight the recession and to create the conditions for a dynamic
recovery. And yes, we One Nation Conservatives are well aware that in
a society where the gap between the rich and the poor has been growing
– as it did under Labour – that we have to look first to the poorest
and the neediest and those who cannot easily compete and that is why I
am so proud that we have expanded the London Living Wage.

Phil Collins

This section shows two things...

... First, that this speech did contain
some sober elements, about the kind of everyday success that Mr
Johnson needs in his day job as Mayor of London if he is to become a
credible candidate for higher office. And second, that he should be
the candidate of the Left, not the Right, of the party. As a liberal,
metropolitan the speech contained some clever darts onto Labour
territory, such as this passage.

Moving forward

We need to go forward now from the age of Excess under Labour.
Through the age of austerity to a new age of Enterprise in which we do
what we did in the Olympics and build a world-beating platform for
Britain for British people and businesses to compete and win and we
need to do it now under the Conservatives and it begins here.

Phil Collins

This rather Hobsbawm-like ending doesn’t quite take off and the party
high command will have been glad of that...

... The speech as a whole gave
the conference energy it had very much lacked beforehand and which
left the stage with Mr Johnson. In technical terms the speech was
mostly about its ethos (the character of Boris) but there was a bit of
logos (actual argument) in there too.